36. Time to Think

THIRTY-SIX

Time to Think

Purposefully, standing outside his SUV before he got in it to go up to Owen Larson’s property, because the man in the town council meeting complained about “wannabe GI Joes,” and it was a shot in the dark, but they’d received his permission to have a look around, Rus made a call.

He set the call to record and hit go on a number that he’d touched a half a dozen times in the day and a half since he’d received from it, and unsurprisingly in those times, Ezra Corbin hadn’t picked up.

Surprisingly, with some of the twenty thousand dollars of his wife’s money, he’d managed to get his hands on a privacy phone that had no GPS receiver, so they couldn’t track him.

But now, he picked up.

“She’s dead?”

His voice was the definition of panic.

And he was keeping on top of local news.

“We need you to come in, Ezra,” he said.

“Is she dead?”

“Yes, and we have reason to believe you’re in danger.”

“Oh my God, this is so fucked up!”

“If you’re in a place where it’s difficult to get into town, or you fear the travel, if you tell me where you are, I’ll make arrangements for someone to come get you.”

“It was just a fucking scene,” he bit off.

Rus was losing it, and the reason why wasn’t because he’d had zero sleep.

“You killed a woman, Ezra,” he clipped. “She had friends. People who loved her. She was kind.”

“She was an Iverson, for fuck’s sake.”

Rus went solid.

“And I had no idea Carrie was going to take it that far. Listen, Zachariah—”

“Do not call me that. I didn’t give you permission to call me that. I’m Special Agent Lazarus,” he growled.

“We’re both just men.”

“No, I’m a man. You’re a criminal wanted for the rape and murder of a twenty-five-year-old woman.”

“It was just a scene,” Ezra snapped.

“Did Brittanie consent to being raped and murdered?”

“I didn’t know she was going to kill her!” he screeched.

Rus was done.

“We have the fake email sent from Jason Bohannan. We know Carrie Molnar checked into room number seven, unlocked and lubricated the back window. We have a statement from the witness who Molnar bought the crystal from. We have your fingerprints inside and outside that back window. We have you and Molnar on security camera footage from the business next to the motel. You have no alibi. We have Molnar’s computer and will soon have evidence she researched the Crystal Killer and purchased plastic tarp. We have a hair left behind, in other words DNA, and we have a sample of your DNA to compare it to. We know you lured Brittanie Iverson to that motel room. You left her body there, so we know you overwhelmed her, you sedated her, you raped her, and we know you at least stood there and watched while Carrie Molnar caved her head in. Now, someone out there is getting revenge for this, and you’re next. You can take your chances, and they found Carrie, Ezra, so I wouldn’t say those chances were good. Or you turn yourself in and face what you did.”

A long silence and then, “Okay, okay, what’s the difference in time served between rape and murder?”

Rus took the phone from his ear, pressed it to his chest and looked to the sky.

It was gray, lots of clouds.

It was going to rain.

He put the phone back to his ear.

“You’re an accomplice, Ezra. You’re worrying about the wrong fucking thing. We’re talking you live, you do your time, you maybe get out while still breathing, or you’re dead when someone hunts you down. And let me just say, they weren’t nice to Carrie. Carrie had a good fucking idea how Brittanie felt when you two did what you did to her. But she was not sedated, and she was beaten, badly. If it takes a while to find you, this guy has time to stew and think of all sorts of things he’s going to do to you. Come. In. To. The. Station. When you do, I’m gonna book you and I’m gonna go balls to the wall to make sure you don’t breathe free for as long as I can manage it. But you’ll be alive, not tied to a bed, bleeding from the ass, mouth raped, carved up, and left with a knife in your heart.”

“I need time to think.”

Jesus.

This fucking guy.

“You don’t have time to think.”

“Give me time to think!”

And then Ezra decided he was going to take time to think.

Because he hung up.

So yeah, he didn’t have to act.

If CK was watching him, he’d see Rus very fucking frustrated.

On that thought, Rus got in his vehicle to drive into the mountains to tramp through the woods.